Bertrand Russell
British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) is a great figure in 20th century philosophy. He was primarily interested in logic and language but was also an anti-war campaigner. Russell was a defender of atheism and wrote a popular pamphlet and lecture called Why I Am Not a Christian (1927). Russell's radio debate with F.C Copleston on the existence of God is a classic of philosophical discussion.
Bertrand Russell is a key scholar for issues in the Ontological Argument, Debate Between a Critic and a Believer and the Anthology BBC Radio Debate
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Only the other evening I picked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him: "Well, Lord Russell, what's it all about?" And, do you know, he couldn't tell me - ANONYMOUS LONDON TAXI DRIVER
A Debate between a Critic & a Believer
The 1948 radio debate between Russell and F.C. Copleston (it was actually recorded the previous year in 1947) is also part of the Edexcel Anthology. You can study the debate in detail elsewhere.
Copleston is a religious believer and argues for the existence of God. Russell is an agnostic and argues that the existence of God cannot be proved.
The Argument from Contingency
Copleston argues for the existence of God using a version of the Cosmological Argument based on contingency. In particular, Copleston adapts Aquinas' 3rd Way and Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason.
in order to explain existence, we must come to a Being which contains within itself the reason for its own existence - F.C. Copleston
Russell's first response is to argue that a 'Necessary Being' is a meaningless concept. Russell recognises that definitions and logical proofs can be necessarily true, but he doesn't think a being can necessarily exist.
to my mind, a 'necessary proposition' has got to be analytic - Bertrand Russell
Analytic propositions are statements which are true by definition. These are sometimes called tautologies. A popular example is "An unmarried man is a bachelor" but Russell gives the example "Irrational animals are animals". Russell suggests that calling a thing 'necessary' is a misuse of language:
The word 'necessary', it seems to me, is a useless word, except as applied to analytic propositions - Bertrand Russell
Copleston calls Russell "dogmatic" (close-minded) in sticking to this definition of 'necessary' but Russell insists he is just trying to use language in a meaningful way.
suppose you take as your subject 'the existent round-square', it would look like an analytic proposition that 'the existent round-square exists', but it doesn't exist - Bertrand Russell
To Russell, a 'Necessary Being' is a contradictory notion, like a 'round-square'. You can't prove such a being exists using pure logic (analytic reasoning). This is very similar to Russell's criticism of the Ontological Argument.
Russell concludes that looking for a Necessary Being as an explanation for things makes no sense:
Russell concludes that looking for a Necessary Being as an explanation for things makes no sense:
you're looking for something which can't be got, and which one ought not to expect to get - Bertrand Russell
Russell goes on the offensive, accusing Copleston of committing the Fallacy of Composition: just because the universe is composed of contingent things, it doesn't mean that the universe itself must be contingent.
every man who exists has a mother , and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother - that's a different logical sphere - Bertrand Russell
Copleston shifts to an inductive argument, suggesting that believing there must be causes or explanations for things is essential for scientific progress. However, Russell is prepared to deny that science is based on the assumption that everything has a cause or an explanation:
the physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere - Bertrand Russell
The view that we can look for causes but cannot assume that they exist is based on David Hume's Problem of Induction.
Russell concludes that we must treat the universe as a brute fact - something which cannot be explained:
Russell concludes that we must treat the universe as a brute fact - something which cannot be explained:
I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all - Bertrand Russell
Religious Experience
Copleston argues that the existence of religious experiences doesn't prove that God exists, but does make his existence more likely as an explanation. Russell argues that religious experiences are subjective experiences - they take place in the mind and do not correspond to anything that exists in reality. Russell contrasts religious experiences with public experiences, like everyone seeing and hearing a ticking clock in a room. On the other hand:
religious experiences do tend to be very private - Bertrand Russell
Russell also argues that religious experiences also contain a lot of superstitious material about "demons and devils and what not" that people like him reject. Copleston focuses instead on religious experiences from people like St Francis of Assisi that are characterised, not be superstition and hallucination, but by "an overflow of dynamic and creative love".
However, Russell has a reply to this:
However, Russell has a reply to this:
The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favour of its truth - Bertrand Russell
Russell suggests that there is no difference between a religious experience and an aesthetic experience - such a loving a character in a book or from history. He uses the example of Lycurgus, a legendary character that schoolboys studying Latin admire in the (mistaken) belief that he really existed. Russell sums this confusion up with a memorable phrase:
he's loving a phantom - Bertrand Russell
Russell proposes that the religious believer is also 'loving a phantom'.
The Moral Argument
This part of the debate does not feature in the Edexcel Anthology and it's not essential to study it, although it does conclude the argument that was left unfinished at the end of the section on religious experiences.
Copleston argues that objective moral values point towards the existence of God and that objective values only make sense if there is a God. He asks Russell for his "justification for distinguishing between good and bad" since he doesn't believe in God.
Russell first of all refers to his feelings, but Copleston presses him on this, using the example of the Nazi commandant at the Belsen death-camp who 'felt' that what he was doing was good and right. Russell doesn't agree with the Nazis, but also doesn't want to admit that they are merely disagreeing over feelings.
Russell ends up appealing to two factors that justify distinguishing between good and bad:
Russell ends up appealing to two factors that justify distinguishing between good and bad:
- Upbringing: Russell thinks our parents teach us right from wrong at a young age
- Conditioning: Russell thinks we psychologically learn moral attitudes as automatic responses to things
the feeling that one has about "ought" is an echo of what has been told one by one's parents - Bertrand Russell
Russell goes on to appeal to moral relativism, pointing out that in the ancient past (and in some parts of the modern world) cannibalism was morally acceptable, but this view has changed.
However, Copleston is not impressed with Russell's arguments, claiming that Russell suffers from "a contradiction between what your theory demands and your own spontaneous judgments" - in other words, Russell does in fact treat morals as absolutes that guide his life, he just doesn't want to admit it. For Copleston, good and evil are objectively real and this is best explained by the existence of God.
However, Copleston is not impressed with Russell's arguments, claiming that Russell suffers from "a contradiction between what your theory demands and your own spontaneous judgments" - in other words, Russell does in fact treat morals as absolutes that guide his life, he just doesn't want to admit it. For Copleston, good and evil are objectively real and this is best explained by the existence of God.
Key Scholar: The Ontological Argument
Russell rejects the Ontological Argument, but remains respectful of its logic and its depth, saying:
it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies - Bertrand Russell
Problems with Predicates
Russell rejects the ontological argument, following the same criticism proposed by Immanuel Kant. Russell sums this up by saying that all ontological arguments are "cases of bad grammar" - in other words, they make a linguistic mistake without realising it, which is why they only appear to prove God's existence.
The linguistic mistake involves subjects and predicates. The subject is the thing the statement is about (God) and the predicates are additional information about the subject. For example, common predicates associated with God are "all-powerful", "all-knowing", "a spirit" and "perfectly good".
The ontological argument seems to treat "exists" as one of God's predicates. It argues that, in order to be perfect or the greatest thing conceivable, God must possess all the good predicates and existence would be one of them. If God lacked a predicate, like power or wisdom, he would be less perfect or less great; similarly, if he lacks existence God is less perfect too.
The linguistic mistake involves subjects and predicates. The subject is the thing the statement is about (God) and the predicates are additional information about the subject. For example, common predicates associated with God are "all-powerful", "all-knowing", "a spirit" and "perfectly good".
The ontological argument seems to treat "exists" as one of God's predicates. It argues that, in order to be perfect or the greatest thing conceivable, God must possess all the good predicates and existence would be one of them. If God lacked a predicate, like power or wisdom, he would be less perfect or less great; similarly, if he lacks existence God is less perfect too.
Predicative Statements
Russell distinguishes between two types of statement:
It is possible to use predicative statements to describe something, but that something does not have to be an existential statement. Russell argued that everyday use of language makes it possible to talk about non-existent things with apparent meaning. For example, we can talk about unicorns in the same way we talk about cows, even though unicorns don't exist. This is because we often ignore existential statements and concentrate on predicative ones. Although we should say "are there things which match the description of cows?" before talking about cows, in fact we just start talking about cows.
Russell uses the example of describing the current King of France being bald (in reality, France is a republic and it has no king or queen, just a President). Russell's descriptions of the bald King of France may be understandable, but they do not correspond to an actual state of affairs. Therefore the statements have no real meaning.
Russell is a REALIST when it comes to language. He believes language must correspond to states of affairs in reality to be true or false. Language which doesn't correspond to reality is MEANINGLESS. The ontological argument would fall into this category. It makes perfect sense but it is, linguistically-speaking, meaningless.
- predicative, which adds to a description of something
- existential, which shows that something actually exists
It is possible to use predicative statements to describe something, but that something does not have to be an existential statement. Russell argued that everyday use of language makes it possible to talk about non-existent things with apparent meaning. For example, we can talk about unicorns in the same way we talk about cows, even though unicorns don't exist. This is because we often ignore existential statements and concentrate on predicative ones. Although we should say "are there things which match the description of cows?" before talking about cows, in fact we just start talking about cows.
Russell uses the example of describing the current King of France being bald (in reality, France is a republic and it has no king or queen, just a President). Russell's descriptions of the bald King of France may be understandable, but they do not correspond to an actual state of affairs. Therefore the statements have no real meaning.
Russell is a REALIST when it comes to language. He believes language must correspond to states of affairs in reality to be true or false. Language which doesn't correspond to reality is MEANINGLESS. The ontological argument would fall into this category. It makes perfect sense but it is, linguistically-speaking, meaningless.
Instantiation
So, if “existence” isn’t a predicate, what sort of a word is it and what exactly does it tell us about something when we say “It exists” or “It doesn’t exist”?
In the early 20th century the British philosopher G.E. Moore explained that existence isn’t a predicate because it doesn’t work like other predicates. He used these two examples:
A. Some tame tigers do not growl
B. Some tame tigers do not exist
The first statement (A) is meaningful: there are creatures called tigers, that they can be tame, and that some of the tame ones don’t growl. Quite a lot of information packed into a small statement!
The second statement (B) uses “do not exist” in the same way as the first one uses “do not growl”. However, we learn no information about tame tigers in this statement, except that they don’t exist (which presumably means there’s nothing to learn about them anyway!).
This just goes to show that the phrases “does exist” and “doesn’t exist” aren’t the same as other predicates and we can confuse ourselves if we ignore this difference.
Bertrand Russell went further with this analysis. He suggests that “existence”, instead of being a predicate, indicates that something is INSTANTIATED in the world of time and space. “Instantiate” means there are instances or examples of something. Russell points out that these two sentences effectively tell us the same thing:
A. Cows are brown.
B. Cows are brown and exist.
All that B means is that brown cows are instantiated but it doesn't increase our knowledge of what they're like. “And exist” tells us that brown cows occupy a place in the world, but this adds nothing to A because, by saying the cows are brown, it’s just assumed we are talking about existent cows.
Russell also considers this:
A. Cows exist.
B. Unicorns do not exist.
This doesn’t mean that cows possess a predicate that unicorns lack (like udders!).
It means that cows are “instantiated”, there are instances of cows but there are no instances of unicorns in reality.
In the early 20th century the British philosopher G.E. Moore explained that existence isn’t a predicate because it doesn’t work like other predicates. He used these two examples:
A. Some tame tigers do not growl
B. Some tame tigers do not exist
The first statement (A) is meaningful: there are creatures called tigers, that they can be tame, and that some of the tame ones don’t growl. Quite a lot of information packed into a small statement!
The second statement (B) uses “do not exist” in the same way as the first one uses “do not growl”. However, we learn no information about tame tigers in this statement, except that they don’t exist (which presumably means there’s nothing to learn about them anyway!).
This just goes to show that the phrases “does exist” and “doesn’t exist” aren’t the same as other predicates and we can confuse ourselves if we ignore this difference.
Bertrand Russell went further with this analysis. He suggests that “existence”, instead of being a predicate, indicates that something is INSTANTIATED in the world of time and space. “Instantiate” means there are instances or examples of something. Russell points out that these two sentences effectively tell us the same thing:
A. Cows are brown.
B. Cows are brown and exist.
All that B means is that brown cows are instantiated but it doesn't increase our knowledge of what they're like. “And exist” tells us that brown cows occupy a place in the world, but this adds nothing to A because, by saying the cows are brown, it’s just assumed we are talking about existent cows.
Russell also considers this:
A. Cows exist.
B. Unicorns do not exist.
This doesn’t mean that cows possess a predicate that unicorns lack (like udders!).
It means that cows are “instantiated”, there are instances of cows but there are no instances of unicorns in reality.